Urban-Reviews.com - Inside Out with Kalisha Buckhanon

Urban Reviews: Start by telling our readers about Conception.
Kalisha Buckhanon: Conception really was my attempt to convey the intense spiritual bond and connection that Black women and their children have had to sustain in America, not just currently but throughout time. So, I am using a contemporary story that people have gotten used to and no longer pay much attention to—teenage pregnancy among Black girls—in order to extrapolate back through time and narrate some of the extreme challenges Black women have faced in their attempts to realize and practice motherhood. My main character Shivana is in a troubling situation. She has a combative relationship with her mother, is being sexually-assaulted and harassed incessantly in her community, and school is not speaking to her. She is a metaphor for anyone who has found themselves in the midst of intense suffering and struggle. However, the unborn child inside of Shivana knows of a spiritual past and destiny that is far beyond what the main character can comprehend in her current moment and situation. It is the child inside who wants Shivana to realize herself as a spiritual being, to look past her circumstances and recognize her eternal continuation. But of course, like most people, Shivana is reluctant to do so and planning to abort the child throughout the novel.

Urban Reviews: What inspired you to create this storyline and the main character Shivana?
Kalisha Buckhanon: I was thinking about the idea when my first novel came out in early 2005, and I had already started writing a little of it here and there, in the unborn child’s voice. I was responsible for a second novel as a part of my contract so the pressure had set in! I told my agent about the idea and mentioned that my own mother had had me when she was fifteen, and that it was hard to think of the fact that I might not be here if she had made a different decision back in 1977. I was lying on my agent’s couch, with a head cold even though I had a Hue-Man Harlem book reading in a couple of hours, and I think the cold medicine just got me talking and crying about not being here in the world, or something loony like that. My agent is the one who asked if anyone would have ever written Upstate, had I not been here and written it. Now at that time we did not know the book would be successful and so many people would relate to it, that it would be such a positive thing. And that was my kind of ah-hah moment. I really started to think about the unique reverberations each and every life gives to the world, and how it is impossible to know what those reverberations will be at the moment of conception. I am still amazed that I have been given the opportunity to write, teach and publish books, and that these books have had a positive impact on people. I think if more and more young people, and we adults that are leading them, recognize that we have all been placed here for a unique journey and path where all of our actions—good or bad—matter, then we might be able to affect more positive changes in the world.

Urban Reviews: In Conception, you told the story in not only Shivana's own voice but also in the voice of her unborn child. Why did you decide to take this approach in telling this story?
Kalisha Buckhanon: I wanted the structure of the novel to resemble a debate, and to operate on this pendulum of argument and rebuttal to really illuminate the fact that no decisions or actions in life are ever fully cut and dry. As a writer, I also do not like to be bored. If I’m bored, I assume the reader will be bored. I had already written a substantial part of Upstate in young adults’ voices, and I wanted to do something different while staying true to the characters. I think telling this story from the perspective of a 15-year old girl who is pregnant would have been boring to me. Where I come from, the occurrence is not all that astonishing, and there is only so much that the voice can capture. It wasn’t just about what she was going through, it was also about what all was going through her once she conceived the child. So I wanted to get intimate with her voice through a close first-person narration, but I also wanted to provide the omniscient perspective that Shivana lacks but desperately needs. The unborn child’s voice provides that.

Urban Reviews: What message do you want readers to come away with after reading this novel?
Kalisha Buckhanon: I don’t want to say because a reader’s reaction is not my choice and is beyond my control. Any message I have in mind or that I put out there could limit someone who needs a different message. I want everyone to pull away from it what they can and should.

Urban Reviews: Your debut novel was Upstate. Can you share with our readers your literary journey since your debut novel up until this point?
Kalisha Buckhanon: Well, I was truly blessed to get reviewed, win some awards and stay in print! That’s been a great part of the journey. I never thought I would receive such validation for the work, but I am happy that I did. One of the highlights of this adventure was having someone like Terry McMillan single me out of the vast sea of writers. I admire her so much for her brave subject matter and I think we both privilege the Black family in our work, and are committed to documenting the Black family in our books. It was truly a joyous occasion when she gave me the first award in her name. I can think of so many others who deserved it. I have had the opportunity to speak to both youths and adults in several formats, and to read my work not just here but in Europe as well. I apologize to anyone who I failed to keep in touch with these last couple of years—it got really, really busy at one point! I received a crash course in publishing. There are so many different components of a successful book launch, so I am looking forward to handling them with more ease this next time around. I also left New York City to return to my alma mater the University of Chicago and work on my PhD in English Language and Literature. I’ve already finished the masters and am just plugging along for the next couple of years to the PhD. Going back to school has been a huge sacrifice because it did somewhat dim the spotlight and my time was taken away from book promoting. But I’m not getting any younger, so it’s now or never for this degree!

Urban Reviews: Are you working on any upcoming projects?
Kalisha Buckhanon: I am always working on little ideas here and there, and then as with Upstate and Conception, once in a while something will take more shape and gather more momentum. I am waiting for that to happen. Right now, I am focused primarily on school! I would hope that some of what I learn and discover could become a book one day, but for now my intellectual ideas and thoughts are in very tender stages. I’ve had the honor of being able to further my understanding of Black female artists, writers and entertainers such as Zora Neale Hurston, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Ann Petry, 19th century preacher Rebecca Cox Jackson and 19th century entrepreneur Mary Ellen Pleasant. I am really ready to champion a new rhetoric in terms of how Black female pop culture icons are discussed in the academy. I think that it has been firmly established that Black women have been victims of sexual exploitation in the media, and discriminatory practices which had grave impacts on their personal lives and career trajectories. I am not interested in beating those dead horses. Rather, I want to focus more attention on the moments when these women were champions and not victims. I want there to be so much more discussion of their smaller accomplishments, their more muted background political and self-validating activities. That’s my focus in a PhD sense. In the meantime, I am helping out friends with plays, shows, documentaries and articles whenever they ask and I have time.

Urban Reviews: What changes have you personally seen in the African American fiction literary industry since your debut novel?
Kalisha Buckhanon: Unfortunately, I was so busy promoting my own book and writing another one that I didn’t see much! But one of the more exciting trends that I have noticed is Black leaders, educators and others with standing in the community are finally stepping up and talking back. I think that is wonderful that Bill Cosby, Juan Williams, Barack Obama, Terrie Williams, Terry McMillan, Hill Harper and other lesser-knowns like Felicia Pride (author of The Message) are talking to the youth and the Black population in general. They are aiming to spread messages of hope and anti-victimhood through the written word. We have had so many positive biographies and memoirs come along, Sidney Poitier’s Measure of a Man is a fine example. Angela Bassett and Courtney Vance’s book is another. I actually started one myself, about how I educated myself despite coming from a poor background, but then school took over! But Black writers are standing up and saying that it is each and every person’s responsibility to determine their own destiny, to clear the negative roadblocks. Not only are more writers saying it, but more writers are actually writing about how to make this happen—how to heal pain, erase victimhood, be blessed with confidence and hope. There are many beautiful books out there, on almost every subject, for people who are looking to improve their lives, and I am so happy that Black writers have become a part of that genre in such a big way.

Urban Reviews: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Kalisha Buckhanon: One of my favorite movies is Frida, about the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. There is scene in that film where Kahlo is pressuring the great Diego Rivera, who will be her future husband and lover, to take a look at her paintings and tell her if she is “good enough,” since she doesn’t have time for the “vanity” of pursuing life as an artiste. Her family has fallen on some hard times, and she wants to paint portraits to help out. Well, Rivera is very dismissive of her as the scene is written and directed. He initially snubs her off, saying, “If you are really a painter you will paint. It doesn’t matter what I say.” And that’s really what it boils down to. I remember watching Vivica Fox about ten years ago on a television show right after the film Independence Day came out. She was being interviewed and people could call in with questions. Someone called in seeking advice from her on becoming a Hollywood actress. She was just as cut and dry then as she is now. She was very blunt, letting the caller know that everyone has only recently seen her become famous but that she had been struggling in this business for over 13 years. She advised the caller to continue to pursue opportunities, and that if she loves performing enough she will keep doing it. And that’s really what it boils down to. Having books on the shelves, websites, interviews, awards, all of that looks very, very glamorous from the outside. But for most artists and writers I know, it is a struggle. We have all been doing this in some way for many years before the public starts to know who you are. And the time between finally getting a small measure of recognition and the public really realizing who you are is a very delicate, precarious time. It is a monetary struggle—teachers and writers are still severely overpaid given what we contribute to society. It is a time struggle. We might have the same speaking, writing and touring demands at various points as singers and actors, but we don’t have the bucks to hire the nannies, trainers, chefs, personal assistant, etc…to hold our lives together while we are off giving ourselves to the world. I have had many nights where I doubted this life path, asking God what his plan for me is. This will happen on the journey, particularly when you are alone with your thoughts as many writers have to be in order to produce. When the bank account is low, the sales aren’t what you expected, new work is rejected or the reviews take a turn for the worst, what do you have? If you are writing because you think it is a good idea, or looks fun, or because you noticed there are a lot of Black books on the shelf these days, you might have an easy time walking away. Those who are real about this never walk away. If you are thoroughly convicted that this is what you are meant to do in life, you must do it with all of your strength and have no regrets.

Urban Reviews: You have served as a writing mentor in the past. Would you consider doing more of this in the future?
Kalisha Buckhanon: I am always mentoring someone because people mentored me. I keep in touch with several young people and mentor a young Black woman through the collegiate mentoring program at the University of Chicago. I mentor a teenage girl who lives in my building and who just watched my cats from time to time. I would not be where I am today if teachers in middle school and high school had not taken interest in me. I would not have made it through college were it not for professors like Kenneth Warren, Jacqueline Stewart, Debbie Nelson, and Black female administrators like Kathryn Stell, Michello Obama, Yvette Adeosun, Pamela Bozeman. These people gave me just someone to talk to and vent with when the times were rough. One of my longtime mentors is Clarence Waldron, one of the top editors at JET magazine and pretty much my uncle by now. He met me when I was 17, and I was applying to attend Columbia University but I could not afford to fly to New York City from Kankakee, Illinois, for the mandatory admissions interview. So, we met in Chicago at the Hilton downtown and have been friends ever since. I got into Columbia but did not go, but his relationship with me was not over because I rejected his alma mater. He took the time to let me know about plays in Chicago, to go to movies with me, to come out to my school events. It is all of our responsibilities to take time to mentor. When the Creator puts someone in front of you is seeking your wisdom, that person is standing in front of you for a reason.

Urban Reviews: What are your goals as an author?
Kalisha Buckhanon: Hopefully, I can fold my goals as an author into my larger life goal of leading a good life that is focused on a spiritual path. For me, it seems that is shaping up to mean teaching and writing. I want to write books that will be important to the understanding of Black people as human beings and not static “types” that everyone thinks they know. That is why I chose to write about young Black people separated by prison, or a single Black mothers leaning onto each other. For me, these were just ordinary people in my world. There was nothing tragic or alarming about their existences or life circumstances. There are many different vantage points to peer into the prism of human existence, and I want to do my part to include the stories which have framed my existence as a Black female in America. I consider teaching, discovering and studying the work of my predecessors to be a part of my goals as an author. It is more than a goal, it is a requirement for me personally. For me to be a part of the process as a professor of Black literature, more specifically as one who makes Black women’s studies more prominent than it is now, would really be icing on the cake.

Urban Reviews: If you had to choose, what author would you consider a mentor?
Kalisha Buckhanon: I have so many great mentors who are authors that it is hard to single any one person out. I acknowledge many writers in Conception who have taken the time to tell me something important about the business or my work. Currently writers Achy Obejas and Bayo Ojikutu live in my ‘hood, so we see each other and get together all the time for workshops and readings. Terrie Williams took the time to really pump up my book even though I couldn’t pay her to represent me. She loved Upstate and she wanted to do it. I have great writer friends who are all at the same level now and need to use each other for sounding boards. I don’t want to single anyone else out because at various points and places in my lives some writers have been more significant than others, but they all deserve the utmost thanks and praise for inspiring me. Often, people don’t know what impact they can have until the future.

Urban Reviews: Name one thing that the world does not know about Kalisha Buckhanon-the person?
Kalisha Buckhanon: I was Miss Junior Kankakee, Illinois. Hey, I did it for the scholarship, what can I say?!?!